Stephen Dubner

People get pretty heated pretty quickly.

But then if you take one of those hot button issues, let's say it's gun control or immigration or something,

and ask them in a non-obnoxious way, which is hard, but ask them to explain, like, what do you mean exactly by border control?

So it turns out that people just don't know what they're talking about most of the time, but we all pretend to.

The reason I don't like that is we pretend to in order to have a position, in order to be in a tribe that I want to get out of.

I think this idea that we've all allowed ourselves to be herded into two political parties.

I'm sorry, Monica, that's just hard to follow because you just have to give the room a minute.

That was very well done.

No, that was very good.

I'm glad you two came to me for help because it's obvious there's an irreconcilable difference here.

And I'd like to say in all honesty, I think you're both right.

I wouldn't even say these things are opposite.

They plainly can coexist.

What I hear you both saying is that one of the most painful things, I know for me, I think for everybody,

is to be somewhere between being misunderstood and being accused of something you didn't do.

That is a great human injustice, and it always has been.

We've all been accused of things we did.

We've all gotten off with things we did and didn't get caught.

But when you're accused of something you didn't do, you feel this outrage.

And I feel like that's the temperature of the far end of the spectrum.